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News July 2015
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Demolition underway at Orange County Government Building as legal battle continues
July 21, 2015
In late June a construction crew began gutting the interior of Paul Rudolph’s embattled Orange County Government Center in Goshen, NY. Two recent lawsuits, filed by local attorney Michael Sussman on behalf of Orange County residents, to halt the demolition were dismissed. A third suit has been filed on the grounds that the County Legislature failed to follow environmental procedures. Meanwhile, the $7 million demolition portion of the project, which includes removing about one-third of the Rudolph building and most interiors, is proceeding and is expected to be complete in two to three months. The remainder of the $75-plus million project comprises a gut reworking of the retained portions of the Government Center and a new addition on the parking lot side. Earlier this year the architecture firm hired for the project, Clark Patterson Lee, told the legislature that they believe saving Rudolph’s signature corduroy concrete would be too costly. It is unclear at this time what exactly the Government Center will look like when the construction dust clears, but judging from an early conceptual rendering by the architect, there is little cause for optimism.
“The demolition begins,” The Chronicle: July 2, 2015
Fred Bernstein, “Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center moves closer to demolition,” The Architectural Record: March 19, 2015
